Review: New Charli XCX LP, ‘Crash,’ Captures an Uncertain Turning Point in Her Career

Before the gorgeously boring Disclosure album, Settle, was released in 2013, another production duo known as N.A.S.A. put out The Spirit of Apollo in 2009. Choc-a-bloc with guest vocalists and musicians, the songs allowed the collaborators to play to their strengths, rather than fall into the pop mold created by the group.

Similarly, in 2022, Charli XCX, who is arguably the best, most interesting collaborator in pop music, has a knack for inviting artists to be themselves on tracks that embrace a future-facing sense of the genre, which seems to encompass sounds from 1981 to now. In the discourse over her new album, Crash, this seems to be a missing piece, which is unfortunate, since Charli is playing to her strengths as a collaborator perhaps better than ever before.

The four releases preceding this new album got a lot of attention and hype for fitting comfortably into the slouchy, chill vibes of contemporary pop music while also bending and refracting them in a way that makes Charli XCX stand out in the crowd. Twenty-seventeen’s Number 1 Angel gave us the perfect confidence of “3AM (Pull Up)” and the throwback of “Babygirl,” which carefully recreates the bright, feel-good production and sensual beats of late-90s R&B (think Ashanti and Brandy at their peak). Yes, the album also features the hyper-futurism of “Lipgloss,” but “Babygirl” managed to anticipate SZA and similarly brilliant artists who took their cues from the vibrance and variety of 1990s confluence of traditional R&B and emerging camps of hip-hop.

On Pop 2, there’s a stronger cohesion to the album track-to-track, and this idea of Charli as a brilliant collaborator can be seen in full bloom. Opener “Backseat” features Carly Rae Jepsen absolutely chewing the track up in a way that chips at her “Call Me Maybe” image. Similarly, Caroline Polachek, MØ, and CupcakKe, all past and future collaborators, feature in a way that lets Charli anchor a track, but where she doesn’t need to be front and center. It’s a controversial take, but the least compelling thing is Charli’s singing voice, and there’s an awareness of that here (and on Crash) that allows her to pull levers and experiment with the help of more vocally interesting friends.

The pulling of these levers reveals, interestingly, a similar infatuation with the pulsing 90s beats heard on Number 1 Angel, as well as the seemingly disparate sounds of 80s and early-90s arpeggiated synthesizers (“Unlock It”), and the boozy club bangers of the mid-late aughts (“Track 10”). The one “on-brand” aspect of Pop 2 is the lyrics. XCX and co. are young and forever, but they’re miserable, engaging in the urgent and emotionally honest singing of vulnerability that categorizes the last decade of the pop genre (see Frank Ocean, Big Thief, Angel Olsen, and, yes, Carly Rae Jepsen).

Twenty-nineteen’s Charli, and 2020’s how i’m feeling now, led us fully into what to expect on Crash. On Charli’s “Blame It On Your Love,” it’s easy to hear a blueprint for Crash’s “Good Ones.” Both songs feature Charli chastising herself for ruining relationships, having some penchant for self-sabotage, etc, but “Blame It On Your Love” is more fun because it seems more nuanced. A 26-year-old Charli can still hold the problem far enough away to invite fans to dance to her depression under its tent.

On Crash, 29-year-old Charli is too old for the same escapism or optimism, which puts “Good Ones” in the company of Cat Power or Lauryn Hill, even if it’s wrapped in candy-coated production perfect for summer drives and Gen Z festival singalongs. how i’m feeling now captured the pandemic in all its fractured glory by making use of FKA twigs-style production to distort, crack up, and interrupt songs about love, longing, frustration, anxiety, and the despair of the grown-up pop star.

These feelings have only matriculated, and Crash delivers on the promise of a Charli XCX record made by someone on the cusp of 30. It’s aesthetically uneven because the future is still bright, but it’s less clear what it should sound like. The big songs are more blunt, because all of that talking doesn’t solve problems, it just makes them seem charming. In so many ways, Crash is a record where an artist looks to her past to find her future, and it’s exhilarating if you’re willing to appreciate that uncertainty and need for time off.

Aesthetically, the music video singles have pulled from 90s “alternative” rock imagery (Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Oasis, Portishead, Red Hot Chili Peppers), and 80s/90s grainy archival footage, as if one is watching a Breeders video on VHS in 2022. Tracks like “Used to Know Me” bop along to those arpeggiated synthesizer sounds of a peak Kylie Minogue hit. Even “Yuck,” which is arguably just a bit too-cute, too-clever, too-whatever sounds like 00s pop tastemaker Lily Allen at her most cutting.

By looking at the music she grew up on, and embracing the hallmarks of the retro sounds she’s always gravitated toward (Janet Jackson is a notable reference point), the record captures Charli trying to figure out what her version of pop’s future might look like.

Here, Charli’s elastic ability to sulk in a big pop track or torch burn as if she can reignite the flame of 90s and 00s slow jams remains intact, as seen in the solid track “Every Rule.” Again, not having the most interesting voice in pop isn’t a negative, and that chameleon-esque ability to step into the role of the big hitmaker or disappear into the background gives Charli an advantage on Crash.

This is particularly true of early favorite “New Shapes,” which may come to be seen as a guidepost for XCX’s future. The track’s video features Charli, Caroline Polachek, and Christine and the Queens moving Cabaret-like on a stage in outfits that are alluring but grown-up. The three women trade off verses, with Chris’s sultry alto both standing apart and blending with XCX’s sensual soprano sadness, and Polachek’s unearthly, distinct shimmering notes bouncing and hovering in a space in the distance. Together, the three inhabit the uncertainty of the next release, but they’re in it together, figuring it out beautifully.

Album art courtesy of Charli XCX